Azul Cup (International team tournament)

[Injured Pigeon]

Hi everyone, we're just short two players to join the tournament, gberardi_rsm and Skloki. Messages have been sent so hopefully we can start on Saturday without delays. Thanks to everyone for finding the correct tournaments.

I have launched a new website for the tournament (with scope to add other tournaments) as I feel that it will provide as a better platform to host results and fixture in future: https://azulonline.wixsite.com/azul-tournaments

I look forward to kicking things off this weekend.

[Injured Pigeon]

Azul Cup - Day 1

Group A, consisting of China, Brazil, Hong Kong, Catalonia and Peru are off to a steady start having completed 2 games. With Jez and Kndr topping their tournaments for China. Still lots to happen over in this group.

AbCd told us that team Germany had been putting in the training for this competition and with his sky rocketing ELO on the lead up it certainly appears to be paying off. In Group B all the action so far is in tournament 2. Andrew_AD and AbCd take the lead with one victory each and their own head-to-head looks to be an interesting affair as tiles begin to collect on floors.

In Group C we see the first tie of the competition in tournament 1 with Chiba and Titan Lupas, likely one to watch. The clash of the favourites in that game saw Priptonite take the win over Chiba putting him in a strong position for the USA team. Over in tournament 2 bangerz has made a strong early start with a 2 for 2 for the USA also, but it's still early days in tournament C.


In Group D, Tournament 1 is just getting going, but tournament 2 has seen 9 games played already and doudoupepito has taken a commanding lead for France with a 4 for 4 win record.
I have it on good authority that the UK did no team preparation for the tournament at all… Fortunately, fortune favours the brave, and tournament 3 favourite, J2Wheels, started out as player 1 in all 5 games. Having played 3 of his 5 games already however he has dropped 1 game to Ant50, who himself has 2 wins in 4, leaving this tournament very open.
Let’s see what Day 2 brings!

[Injured Pigeon]

Azul Cup - Day 2

China was dealt a blow today in Group A-2 as Catalonia’s senglar beat Chinese favourite Kndr by a row tie breaker. This leaves tournament 2 wide open with the top 3 playing twice and winning once. Over in A-3, China’s Jez610 tied with Hong kong’s Helic and with Phosphate still to face some of the highest ranked players in the tournament, it seems China may have a real fight on their hands for qualification.

Group B-1 is still only one completed game in, but the contest between pepe919 and Zeus is underway, and looking at the board situation and tile fall, it seems that Zeus may take an early lead in the game. In tournament 2, Hungary’s Kvarclovag has taken the lead with 2 victories in his 4 games, but with losses against Andrew_AD and AbCd, he’s unlikely to remain top for long. The game between Adrew_AD and AbCd continues to be a close-run affair and the winner of this game may very well emerge as tournament champions.

In B-3 napalmEy dealt a blow to Russia’s hopes by beating current tournament leader, Ramapatit. An aggressive start by Rampatit couldn’t quite see off the tile hungry napalmEy who built a column at the end row late in the game.

Group C-1 continues to thrill as Ukraine’s devaka completed the day top of the group with 3 wins from 4, faltering only to Chiba, and with a victory over Priptonite, it cements that position. With all other positions still up for grabs, there’s still some crucial points to be had for all teams.
USA’s Bangerz continues his flawless run with 3 wins out of 3. Japan’s dark horse, fuji-poyo is yet to complete a game so may still pose a threat to bangerz’z dominating position. In tournament C-3, things remain tight as both KevinWise and Nya11 maintain clean sheets. The game between these tournament favourites has only just gotten underway, nya11 has an early lead but some difficult choices to make.

Things are no longer quiet in Group-D1 as MayMay0000 screams his way to the top after delivering a 61 – 48 blow to Canada’s favourite, BBT. MayMay0000 also notches up a victory over C0d3N1nj4, but there’s still many games left to play.

In D2, all but 3 games have now been played. Doudoupepito finishes his 5 games with 4 wins and currently sits on top of the group. His only loss coming against the charismatic Injured Pigeon in a close fought and columnless game for the Pigeon. Telborn entered the tournament as underdog but currently sits in second spot and with one game left he’ll be hoping to keep that place. Reish Galuta has surprised everyone as a win still evades him in this tournament. We caught up with Reish Galuta earlier in the day for what has been a disappointing tournament for him, he only had this to say: “These were not the tiles I was looking for ”.

In D3, UK’s J2Wheels sits atop with 3 wins in 4 games. His wins over Zerg Rush and ilian1010 (positioned 2nd and 3rd) and a strong lead in his final game make him an almost certain for finishing in 1st place. The contest for 2nd however remains closely fought.

So, with quite a few surprises, that’s all for the action in day 2.
Tournament organiser Injured Pigeon did react however when asked why he left the slow scoring option enabled, he told us it was “to build suspense, I regret nothing”.

[Injured Pigeon]

Azul Cup - Day 3

Group A-1:
Things are starting to move in Group A.
Brazilian team captain Bruno Lana made a strong start after defeating Azul’s 4th ranked Hong Kong power house, Sunny369, and finishing the day with a win also over Catalonia’s Abstroke. Bruno seems to have had his Weetabix (or whatever they eat in Brazil – probably still Weetabix given the corporate stranglehold on food sovereignty) and confidence will be on a high for his clash with Phosphate_ who continues to make steady progress in all games. Sunny however is not out yet and snaffled a late evening win to climb to the top and forced me edit in this last part of the commentary.

Group A-2:
Kndr regains composure and senglar makes a slip in the tournament to even out with the two of them sharing equal points also with Brazil’s Leosmar, it all seems to be shaping up to be a tight contest. Neowarjox and CTCT have still to complete any games and make their impact felt.

Group A-3:
With only a few games played in the tournament, Jez610 notches up a win against Catalonia’s fontrodona2 to take the top spot.

Group B-1
The group accelerates the pace of games after Azul’s number 3, and the man who forced AbCd and ShengW into watching all of Pritonite’s videos until they got better, bemoaned the pace of games in the group due to “everyone else” taking it serious… (Editor’s note - this may have been taken out of context for effect). No surprise though that Zeus presently tops the leaderboard, but Acc1dd is right there behind him with a record to match of 2 for 2. I have it on good authority that we’re all routing for Ac1dd.

Group B-2
As thought, Hungary’s Kvarclovag couldn’t maintain his grip on the top and faltered to Andrew_AD who has 2 wins in 3. Andrew_AD’s game against AbCd is still incredibly close as they enter the 4th round with only one point between them. AbCd’s progress in the competition is moving steadily, it’s almost as if he has another unrelated tournament game against stiff competition that is taking all his brain power… (https://boardgamearena.com/6/azul?table=616404608).

Group B-3
This is where all the drama currently rests in Group B. Three players, xalax999, Ramapatit and naplamEye all have a 2 for 3 record and nestle together at the top. SchengW has yet to register more than 1 game however as he’s now currently busy working his way through the Genki video series before returning to the table.

Group C-1 has only 1 more game to play as Priptonite and Titan Lupus jostle for position. If Prip wins he’ll secure a valuable second place finish, and if Titan wins he’ll take 3rd. Priptonite has a commanding lead in the game being 10 points clear in round 5, but all may not be over yet (it probably is, feel the pressure Prip).

Group C-2
Group C are flying, and in tournament 2 only one game remains also. Fuji-poyo has blown on to the scene from nowhere and clocked up 3 straight wins, including handing defeat to Bangerz and making yesterday’s Dancing Daisy feel like a Worried Wario as Fuji enters his final game against Ukrain’s bazilyuk to steal the victory away from him and threaten USA qualification.

Group C-3
KevinWise shows everyone how it’s done after achieving the first clean sweep of the tournament with a 4 for 4 record, and he did it all without watching a single Priptonite video! Ayanchiy and nya11 contest for 2nd place and still have their game unresolved.

As it stands, the USA are in the lead with a total of 13 points, and Japan and Ukraine slightly trail on 11. Is it over?

GroupD-2:
First up for a change we have, D2, and as new star pundit and all round (insert expletive), Telborn put it: “Group D2 is officially done”, and it couldn’t have come sooner for Reish Galuta who was last seeing being consoled by MayMay0000 after suffering 5 successive losses (but achieving an inverse KevinWise), but we promised not to talk about it – so that’s that. On the other end of the spectrum, doudoupepito held on to the top spot as the terrible Telborn clipped Injured Pigeon’s wings before he had the chance to soar. Telborn (spawn of the devil) clinched the second spot. When asked to comment on his performance Injured Pigeon said: “At least I didn’t lose to Reish Galuta.” – but no more on that subject. That puts France and Chillie in a strong qualification spot.

GroupD-3:
Zerg Rush edged his way to the top after defeating illian1010 to ply the pressure on J2Wheels. Both players have one game more to play against Adanlasheras to determine the overall tournament winner out of the 3 of them. PinkCheeks blushes may still be sparred if he can defeat Adanlasheras and avoid doing a “Reish”.

GroupD-1:
Little progress has been made in Day 3 and the clock for some is ticking... and clearly, it’s not an alarm clock in Micalis’ case!
MayMay0000 still sits atop the table for the RoW team, and Spamgras’ victory over MayMay0000 put’s team Chile in a strong position. This looks like it will be the tournament which decides qualification.
As it stands currently, Chile has the advantage but with so much still to be played, it could still go any way and the UK will have to depend on Micalis to pull them out of the hole that Injured Pigeon landed them in.

[Injured Pigeon]

Azul Cup - Day 4
Group A 1-3
Not much happened in group A today and the only notable change was that Phosphate_ completed one game with a victory over Abstroke by a 15-point margin and climbed once again to over 1000 ELO to attain Grand Master status.

Group B-1
Zeus broke the tie for the top by defeating Ac1dd and now is looking strong with a 3 for 3 record. In Zeus’ final game, it looks like pj9416 has put in a valiant effort to try and stop him, but it looks set to be a Zeus win.

Group B-2
AbCd held his nerve against Andrew_AD and pulled out a 2 point victory to climb to the top of the table. The victory is now assured despite his last game against yurakud. He might finally take a move in a completely unrelated tournament game… you never know?

Group B-3
ShengW emerged from the training ground today to notch up his second victory by handing defeat to Russia’s Ramapatit to climb atop the leaderboard.
The German’s may be taking their time in this competition, but no one can deny their results and they currently look to be the strongest team in the competition with no losses in a combined 8 games, a feat not seen since QueenDong teamed up with MissDong and CN_Azul.

Group C-1
Well I’ll be darned… Priptonite only went and won the tournament. Meaning that not only is he better than everyone thought but also that Injured Pigeon ahad no idea how the positions were ranked and that most everything he’s probably written up till this point was a load of b@lls.
I’m off to file a feature request to displays the game score in the Round Robin table for the BGA devs to wipe their @55’5 with… well done Priptonite!

Group C-2
Bangerz still awaits the result against Japan’s Fuji-poyo and Ukrain’s bazilyuk to see if he can make it a clean sweep for the USA team. But strong contender Fuji-poyo doesn’t look to be having an easy time of it and seems to be playing a somewhat unconventional game that even Pritonite might have a hard time analysing.

Group C-3
Nya11 closed the tournament in 2nd place after defeating rival ayanchiy.
Meanwhile, the devil makes work for idle hands and “done for the day” KevinWise, with no games to play, started to gather the villagers and their pitch folks to hunt down the tournament’s slower players and still have time to start erecting the gallows!

Group D-1
With the fear of “KevinWise” running through him, Micalis finally manged to… take a turn or two. All I can says is that this guy better turn out to be good!
Chile’s Spamgas who started the tournament as the rank outsider currently tops the table with 3 victories in 3 games with a strong performing Skloki right behind him.

Group D-2
Completed in day 3… just saying.

Group D-3
Zerg Rush further dashed UK’s hopes of qualification by just pipping J2Wheels to the finish on total game points… we totally knew that’s how that worked! Sadly for Zerg Rush, it turns out the Reish Galuta also lives in Canada.

[Injured Pigeon]

Azul Cup - Day 5
The Azul community was in arms yesterday as the Azul Cup news brought about many conflicting views and ultimately a lot of controversy that threatened to overshadow the whole event… It was revealed that Reish Galuta doesn’t even live in Canada! Azul Cup officials released this statement:
“We deeply regret allowing Reish Galuta to take part in the tournament. In our defence, Canada uses Monopoly Money for currency, so we assumed his “The Travel the World Board Game” passport was probably legit. We have since learned that his BGA 700 ELO was also gained playing Snap…
His actions have brought shame to the tournament, and to competent Azul players around the world. We can only apologise and give our condolences to Zerg Rush, his family, and of course Reish’s family – it must be toughest on them.”
But enough about that…

Group A 1-3
Phosphate_’s victory over Bruno Lana today was a very convincing one indeed, defeating the tournament leader by more than 30 points. This sent waves of disappointment throughout the tournament, and not just because he laughs at all the jokes that this British wit can deliver whilst waiting for AbCd to take his turns in an unrelated tournament.
Phosphate_ still has some work to do, but it appears as though the German Gauntlet has been picked up by the Chinese team captain.

Group A-2
Hong Kong’s CTCTCTCTCTCTCT*, who is sometimes mistakenly referred to as CTCTCTCTCT, completed his first game today. And if that wasn’t cause for celebration enough, he won it too, defeating the once promising senglar – do you remember him defeating kndr early in the tournament? Yeah me neither, it was ages go…
Kndr and Leo remain in the top spots with nothing between them.

Group A-3
Tournament organiser and all-round nice guy, Injured Pigeon, was leading the search party earlier today for Brazil’s LB03, without any success. Fears are that KevinWise and his mob may have gotten to the android wannabe first.
(* Editor’s note, we spelled it wrong again, apologies CTCTCT, it won’t happen again)

Group B-1
During the final game of the tournament between Zeus and PJ9416, fans were shocked when pj punctuated his 2-day long decision on whether to take 1 white or 2 yellow, by taking 1 blue… before hastily putting it back again hours later. The excitement just keeps building... The answer of course is 1 light brown fudge… yum.

Group B-2
For AbCd and yurakud’s own marathon, the end seems nigh, and it looks like it will soon be confirmed that Germany will have won two tournaments in the competition without a single defeat.

Group B-3
ShengW continues to maintain the German prowess in the competition and notches up his 3 successive win. Only xalax999 stands in his way now and looking at this final game, it does appear that ShengW may be in trouble as he falls 6 points behind. No doubt the German claxon’s are sounding and Zeus has him trussed up watching youtube like Andy Mcdowell in Clockwork Orange (one for the kids there).
Whichever ever way the tiles fall, Germany have qualified for the finals.

Group C-1/3
Completed.

Group C-2
Ukrain’s bazilyuk pulled a blinder for the US team by stopping the runaway locomotive that was Fuji-poyo. Bangerz makes it a clean sweep for the US team who easily sail into the finals.
Well done USA! And well-done for completing all your games first… don’t worry, I’m sure Donald will find jobs for you all soon and your misspent hours playing Azul will be but a distant memory.

Group D-1
Micalis finally shifts into gear and notches up his first victory against MayMay0000 (YayYay!) and so it looks like a 3-way battle royale for the top spot with Skloki and Spamgas – this looks set to be a close one, with Chile just in the lead with 10 points and both the UK and France on 9.

Group D-2/3
Completed.

[Injured Pigeon]

Azul Cup - Day 6
As the regional stage of the competition nears its end, the controversy surrounding it continues to grow as stories begin to surface that some teams are using performance enhancements to get the edge over other teams. Our investigative journalist went deep undercover to find out more, names have been changed to protect identities…

Investigator: “So, when did you start losing control of it?”
Pr1pton1t3: “Probably around the time I started my movie career. I just started off small at first… just a bit of “notepad” on the side to relax me… And as my career took off and the fame grew, well it just got, it just got a lot worse… It’s more common than you think in the Azul movie business, look at the Ch1b411’s videos and tell me he’s not off his head, all the time!”
Investigator: “So, how often are you doing it now?”
Kv4rc10v4g: “I’m not proud to say I’m doing it every day. Some days, it’s just one Tab, others it can be two, three… (ex)hell I did 5 Tabs once, complete mind fu...”

Investigator: “What got you into the habit?”
4bCd3FgHi12345: “The pressure mein Frund, the unbelievable pressure. When you’re under-performing and your captain, 2eu5, tells you that this is the only way to up your game and compete with the best… what do you do? I don’t want to let him down; I don’t want to let anyone down… And, and I don’t want to have to watch another Pr1pton1te video, anything but that…”

Sad… very sad words from the vulnerable “victims” of what is emerging to be the darker side of Azul. We’ll keep you updated as the story unfolds…
In game news…

Group A-1
It seems like we spoke too soon as Hong Kong stand in defiance of China in this competition… Sunny has a 4-point lead over Phosphate_ in the 5th round of their game and has what appears to be a commanding board state.

Group A-2
In A-2, CTCTCT secures 2nd place with a win over Leosmar and is the only player with a clean sheet in this tournament, and therefore remains a real contender. His game against Kndr will be crucial in determining the winner.
Between the two of them they could cause a real upset for China’s hopes of qualification.


Group B-1
In the final game of the group, PJ9416 still faces the toughest challenge of his Azul career… determining whether to take 1 white or 2 yellow. The real kick to the gut is that there’s 2 more whites and 3 more yellows available in the game! Let’s hope Zeus really is immortal as he’s in for quite a wait.

Group D-1
Micalis’ delivered a blow for Chile today and a lifeline for the UK after defeating Spamgas. Injured Pigeon was quoted as saying, “The guy is a national treasure, I’ve never had a bad word to say about him…” This now elevates the UK to 11 points, with closest rivals Chile on 10.
Micalis has however suffered a setback in his first loss of the tournament against C0d3N1nj4, who incidentally also helped on today’s news by doing a sterling job of hiding the identities or our sources in our earlier segment, thanks C0d3n1nj4, you’re a 5t4r!

Tournament officials also wanted to state that they have received many questions ranging from:
• “Can we see the full final regional positions?”
• “What happens if a player deliberately times out?”
• “Will the finals start immediately after regionals?”
• “Can we make China weaker by forcing self_evident to play?”
• “Will the original player rankings be used for the finals?”
• “Can we sign up now for next season?”
• “Is Reish, OK?”
• “Are you OK? You didn’t mention Reish in today’s news.”

We’re not stalling for time, honestly. All these questions will be answered in due course. Right now, we don’t want to distract the Azul players that are still finishing off their accounting... turns, I meant turns.
Good night and be safe.

[Injured Pigeon]

Azul Cup - Day 7.5

We have listened to the growing concerns of teams that some players may be cheating using multiple accounts. To combat this problem our team of BGA software developers, all of which are volunteers paid in kind with high praise bestowed upon them from the BGA community, have developed highly sophisticated AI technology. This technology is capable of analysing dozens of games in mere hours using the latest quantum computing technology, and through use of predictive pattern analysis, collusion detection algorithms, and advanced mathematics, it will stamp out this problem once and for all… ladies and gentlemen I present the future of Azul law enforcement:
The CHeat Identification & Behavioural Analysis – 1st iteration, aka CHIBA1i.
CHIBA1i has been busy working hard for the past week, parsing through Azul Cup games, prying into personal accounts, and applying its advanced algorithms to the job of pissing people off as it routes out these multiple accounts; and were pleased to say that it has already yielded promising results:



There does appear to still be some bugs though, as BBT has won one game, which throws real doubt into it being a second Reish Galuta account.


Group A-1
In the end, the tournament proved to be much closer than most imagined. Sunny defeated Phosphate_, Bruno Lana defeated Sunny, and Phosphate defeated Bruno, as the ménage à trois all finished with 3 points. BGA tie breaker rules see Phosphate_ winning the tournament after his 30+ point win over Bruno. Congratulations to all three but well-done Phosphate_.

Group A-2
CTCTCTCTCT couldn’t hold of Kndr, who claimed the victory and now finishes his games at the top of the table. Only one more game remains, between CTCTCTCT and Neowarjox and it looks like it will be a CTCTCTCT victory. With scores now being crucial, will CTCTCTCT just edge out the top spot?

Group A-3
A similar picture presents itself in A-3 as China’s Jez610 sits above Hong Kong’s Helic on the same points. All games are played except for LB03s who threatens to timeout in all games. Bruno Lana was called in to answer for the player who had so far refused to speak with officials. Bruno assured tournament organisers that he has had stern words with the player and that he will complete his games on time or see himself transferred to the Canadian team for the next tournament… bad news for Brazil, but great news for Canada, I guess.

Group B-1
In the hardest fought game of the competition so far, the winner was… 2 yellow! Heartfelt congratulations go out to those guys, who just won out over 1 white. In less spectacular news, Zeus defeated PJ to make it official and wins the tournament with a clean sheet.

Group B-3
However, Germany failed to emulate USA success in group C as SchengW stumbled in his game with Xalax999 who put the German down. Not only does this mean SchengW finishes in second below tournament winner Xalax999, but he now has Zeus who will likely have him paraded in lederhosen as he is publicly flogged in the streets of Baveria.

Group D-1
The tournament continues to deliver excitement and upset across the board. Skloki suffered two successive defeats against Spamgas and BBT. BBT registers his first win of the tournament whilst Spamgas almost secures the top spot. Micalis on the other hand is behind in his game with Skloki by 8 points and is still columnless in round 4.
No change in table positions however and Micalis can’t afford to slip down the table if the UK are to steal qualification away from Chile.

[devaka]

Hi! When finals will be started and how to know who proceed?

[devaka]

It's not obvious what current status is, who is still playing and where we can find links to their tournaments? What is timeframe/limit after that 1st phase will be considered finished? When we should be ready for the next phase and should we?
It would be nice to have mo information or on the website either here on forum thread.